Farm Products

Nutrient-Dense Food. Period.

The dominant theme in the American food system today is price and convenience. At Timshel Permaculture Farm, its a narrative: we are regenerating the land, cleaning the air, purifying the water, deepening the soil, restoring biodiversity and nutrient-density, and providing supremely healthy food in the process.

It is our unyielding belief that regenerating the land and soil to restore nutrient-density, ecological health and biodiversity is just as important as promoting and fostering human health. Humanity cannot live, nor can we live well, if we destroy or damage our ecological resources in the process. The regenerative farmer, therefore, carries a dual-focused and linear goal: regenerative the land and then heal the body.

We believe that, although non-GMO practices are admirable, any use of pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides on the land generally or our food specifically is absolutely against the true mission of the regenerative farmer.

If supplemental feeds are necessary, we exclusively use certified organic, non-GMO, and soy-free feeds. System wide, we absolutely and entirely do not provide or use any hormones, fertilizers, antibiotics, vaccinations, medications, synthetic vitamins, appetite stimulants, injections, irradiations, herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, GMOs, or chlorine baths to our land or stock. Ever. Period. That is our promise.

Nature is at home here, as we are at home in it.

We strive to foster holistic health by applying designs observable in nature and within the realm of common sense, pushing to benefit ecology generally and our livestock particularly.

Chicken

Our pastured and nutrient-dense poultry operation seeks to mimic and enhance the patterns and perfection of nature and its inextricably complex web of interrelationships.

After our chicks spend their fragile first two weeks in our clean, bright, and open-aired brooder house, we set them out to pasture in open & movable chicken shelters where they rotationally graze freely and abundantly. With the utmost liberty, they select their daily bounty of lush pasture grasses, bountiful clover, protein-dense insects, soil organisms, and certified organic, non-gmo, and soy-free feed.

To properly distribute their manure and to maintain a consistent feast of fresh pasture, we move each shelter twice per day from the day they reach the pasture to the day they leave it. Period.

Concerning supplemental feeds, which all chickens require to maintain proper and healthy levels of minerals, nutrients, and proteins, we exclusively use Certified Organic, non-GMO, and soy-free locally milled feed.

We take great pride that less than 30% of each chicken’s daily diet is in the form of this supplemental and organic feed. The other 70% is provided by nature.

The end result yields a chicken that is happy and healthy; one that has the strength, energy, and stamina to fly and roost, to run and forage—to express their true “chickenness” all their long life; one that promoted ecological restoration during its life and nutritional restoration in its death.

Forest-Raised Pork

We proudly raise Gloucestershire Old Spots, a rare heritage breed that is known for its docility, friendliness, and foraging intelligence. They are truly the movers and shakers in our 200-acre sustainable forestry system.

Pigs raised entirely in the forest are beneficial for many reasons. Managed intensively, they promote and restore native woodlands and their unique ecosystems. Historically, pigs naturally inhabited Virginia’s native forests and shrublands and are the most broadly omnivorous livestock on the farm. Lastly, our pigs fatten themselves naturally and freely on a multitude of forest nuts, fruits, grubs, and roots. Through intensive management within the forest, our pigs are not only tasteful and entirely natural, but their life in the woods promotes true generations of regeneration.

Beef

100% Grass-Fed and Finished

We are proud to raise sustainable, regenerative, and 100% grass-fed and finished beef in Nelson County, Virginia. Our herd is comprised of some of the finest registered Irish Dexter genetics around. The Irish Dexter is a heritage breed known for its size, hardiness, docility, mothering skills, and ability to finish remarkably well on grass.

One of the more fundamental reason we raise Irish Dexter is that their “impact” on pasture can be as hard or as light as needed. Since they are a smaller breed, with cows weighing out to about 60 to 70% of your typical Angus cow, Dexters can thrive on less water and pasture. This means that, during droughts or monsoons, spring or winter, we can utilize common sense and intensive pasture management so as to provide as little hay as needed—potentially none at all—so that our beef is truly 100% lush grass fed and fresh grass finished without exception.

The ultimate pasture force, our cattle are intensively managed using rotational grazing practices meshed with permaculture philosophies to produce healthy food on healthy soil. Moved as frequently as typography, pasture grasses, and precipitation demand—most often daily—our intensively managed herd regenerates the land using its hooves to aerate the soil, its excrement to deposit organic matter and nutrients in the pastures, and its stocking rate to trample weeds and un-palatable invasive species while producing some of the highest-quality beef around.

Our rotational grazing system provides continually lush pasture for our herd to consume and transform into delicious, tender, and health-giving food without the use of medicated feeds, antibiotics, or supplements.

Goat Dairy

A Rotationally Grazed and 100% Pasture Fed and Finished Dairy

We are proud to raise rotationally grazed goats in central Virginia. Our fundamental goal is to milk and breed worm resistant and resilient goats purely on pasture and the nearby forests. Being browsers, goats prefer different pasture plants than other animals, like weeds, grasses, bushes, flowers, and trees and, therefore, they are the “followers” in our multispecies pasture rotation system.

Using management intensive grazing methods designed with small & creative paddocks and portable electric netting, our goats continually browse their desired forages when they are lush and full of nutrients. Rotating also helps keep their worms and parasites at bay.

Our goats are truly pets. Most farm tours gravitate toward something akin to a petting zoo, as people hold, pet, and scratch our friendly goats and their loving kids.

We are not currently milking our goats and are focusing on improving genetics and building the herd.